Images have been formed by screen printing processes for many years. In screen printing, an image is formed on a substrate by positioning a stencil comprising a given pattern in or on a finely divided mesh screen. An ink is then applied through the stencil/screen assembly onto the substrate resulting in a complementary image on the substrate. Such patterned stencils have been formed on screen constructions using a variety of techniques. Both photosensitive (negative and positive image) and non-photosensitive image forming processes have been used. The photosensitive materials used in making emulsion or film products can be solvent based or can be aqueous based. In many industries, including photostencil industries, the trend is away from solvent based materials to materials manufactured from or based on aqueous formulations. Many photosensitive film and liquid dispersions are now based on aqueous products. In a similar vein, both solvent based inks and solvent containing screen wash compositions have been used in screen printing operations. In response to demands of the market, vendors of screen printing materials have introduced water based inks. The use of water based or aqueous inks can cause images on stencils, made from water based films or aqueous emulsions, to swell or deteriorate reducing the effective lifetime of the stencil and image quality. Because these image layers formed from typically aqueous materials tend to interact with water based inks and swell, soften or otherwise deteriorate, a substantial need exists to improve the printing properties of materials derived from aqueous based systems for printing with water based inks.